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Have you started planning your holiday email campaigns yet?

No?! What are you waiting for?

Thanksgiving, Black Friday and even Cyber Monday have come and gone and the clock has almost struck midnight on 2016. Don’t let it get too late in the month before you start hitting your contacts with holiday emails.

“But, they’re just emails,” you may be saying. “Is that really where I need to be focusing my holiday marketing attention?” The answer is yes, yes you do. During the 2015 holiday season, email marketing drove an impressive 20% of all online sales.

So how can you get in on that kind of action? Here are a couple of tips to help guide you through your holiday email marketing and finish the year on top of your game.

Make Your Email Stand Out

Email marketing: Everyone’s doing it, mom!

The holidays are the busiest time of year for business marketing. Not only are you trying to reach your customers on any and all fronts but you are also competing with literally everyone else. Not just direct competitors either. Many shoppers will (try to) stick to a budget during the holidays, so if your marketing doesn’t make a big enough impression you may go ignored.

A great way of making your email marketing uniquely stand out is to take advantage of custom graphics and strong photography.

A strong, cute, clever or funny holiday themed graphic can make an impression on people and make them remember you when they are shopping or could help edge them towards clicking through to your website.

Same goes for photography. A well-shot photo of your building covered in snow or a company photo with Santa hats projects that human element to your audience to help win their favor, especially if you are a small or local business.

If you don’t have the time or gumption for something like that, there are some other shortcuts for making your email stand out. Email tools like Constant Contact provide specialty themed templates that are fully customizable. Here are a couple cute holiday-themed examples.

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Create “List Exclusivity”

Everyone likes to feel special, especially around the holidays. I speak from personal experience here. If you can convince your customers that they are special, even in a very small way, that may be all you need to win their business.

One creative way to do this is to share a holiday promotion exclusively for members of your email list. A promotion code, coupon or link to a custom landing page on your website can do the trick. This kind of strategy serves two crucial roles.

For starters, a promotion like this can help build loyalty among your current customers, rewarding them even more for remaining on your email list. Building a core of loyal customers is a great way to help gain new customers through word of mouth or other methods.

Which rolls into the second perk, being that your loyal rewarded customers may be encouraged to forward the email to friends and family and encourage them to join your list to get the promotion. This opens a window to reach a new audience and grow your contacts list.

 

Don’t Limit Yourself

Maybe you usually only reach out to your contacts once or twice a month. That is fine on any given month, sure, but if there is ever a time of year to turn up your visibility it is now.

Make the extra holiday push! Send out a couple extra emails for the month. This gives you a chance to get into your customers’ minds more frequently and also a chance to experiment.

With each different email, try something a little bit different. Switch up the messaging or wording on one, try out a different graphic on another. Also experiment on sending specific groups different layouts or messaging if your list is that deep or differentiated.

You just have to be sure you don’t inundate your contacts with emails. Be smart about your sending. Give a couple days or a week in between each blast. Also, make sure you are hitting them at the right time.

Don’t just expand on your amount of sends, push on through the holidays and on to the year’s end. Do you really think people will want to stop spending just because Christmas is over? No way. In fact, that is when some people will ramp up shopping to take advantage of end of season sales.

Run through the finish line! Push your marketing all the way through New Year’s Eve/Day to take advantage of your competitors stepping off the gas. You can even consider putting together a last-minute campaign or deal just for the occasion.

January will be here before you know it. Start reaching your customers right now! Roundpeg is Constant Contact certified and has the expertise to help you get the most out of the season with email marketing.

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